by Brad Thor
He decided to remain in the ravine a little while longer. Five minutes later, a white Acura pulled into the driveway and parked right behind Martin’s Aston Martin.
From behind the wheel, a heavyset, middle-aged man wearing a dark suit climbed out of the car. Unlike Sevan, this man was a bundle of nervous energy. He was visibly uncomfortable. He took a long, slow glance around his immediate area before turning toward the house. Walking up to the front door, he depressed the button for the bell and waited to be admitted. Ralston didn’t know what to make of the man. He was definitely jumpy about something.
At five minutes after twelve, having seen no further activity, Ralston decided he needed to make a decision. Actually, he needed to make a move. The decision had already been made. He hadn’t come all this way just to turn around and leave. He had no idea who the second man in the house was, but he assumed he would soon find out. With no police surveillance that he could detect, he had no choice but to make his way inside.
He looped around the back of the house. Skirting the swimming pool, he found the patio doors unlocked. Martin Sevan and the man in the dark suit were sitting in Sevan’s home office waiting for him.
“Hello, Marty,” Ralston said as he stepped into the room.
Sevan was in his late fifties. He was short, but powerfully built. His black hair was slicked back and he had the same penetrating green eyes as his daughters. He had removed his suit coat and his shirtsleeves were rolled halfway up his thick forearms. It was the first time the two men had seen each other since the trial. “Hello, Luke,” Sevan responded. “How’ve you been?”
“I’ve been better,” he replied, knowing that lawyers never asked a question they didn’t know the answer to.
Sevan didn’t bother responding. Instead, he introduced the man in the dark suit. “Luke, I’d like you to meet Aleksey Lavrov. Aleksey, this is Luke.”
Ralston shook the man’s hand and Sevan invited them to sit. “Anybody need a drink?” he asked as he poured himself one.
“Yes, please,” said Lavrov. His English was heavily accented. The collar of his shirt was too tight and fleshy rolls of fat spilled over the top. Despite having put on a suit, presumably for the meeting, he hadn’t managed to get the knot of his tie all the way up and his top button showed by about a half-inch. He was sweating and his narrow eyes purposefully avoided Ralston’s gaze.
“Luke?” Sevan asked. “Something for you?”
“No thanks, Marty.”
Sevan poured a drink for himself and one for Lavrov and then took a seat behind his large desk while the other two men sat in upholstered chairs on the other side facing him. “So?” he said, drawing the word out.
Ralston remained quiet. This was Marty’s show and he was going to run it any way he saw fit. Ralston just hoped that having Lavrov present meant that he had the information he needed.
“I made a couple of phone calls on your behalf, Luke,” Sevan stated. “The LAPD are very interested in speaking with you.”
“We’ll get around to talking sooner or later.”
“I’m sure you will. What about Mr. Salomon?”
“What about him?” asked Ralston.
“Is he okay? Unharmed?”
“He’s a little shaken up, as you might imagine, but he’s doing okay, all things considered. Why?”
Sevan pursed his lower lip as he shook his head. “Just making sure, that’s all.”
“I told Alisa he was okay.”
“She told me you did.”
“So why are you asking?”
“Because, Luke, I’m a litigator. A big part of what I do is reading people. I wanted to hear you say it. Or more important, see you say it.”
Ralston didn’t like being put under the microscope, but it was he who had come asking for the favor, so he bit his tongue. “Larry Salomon is alive and well.”
“You know one of the theories that the LAPD detectives are pursuing is that you kidnapped Salomon,” stated Sevan.
“Well, that’s a pretty stupid theory.”
“Is it?”
“For crying out loud, Marty. If I was going to kidnap Larry Salomon, I would have been a lot more creative and wouldn’t have left calling cards with my name on them all over his house and property,” replied Ralston.
“Reasonable or not, it’s one of their theories. They definitely have you pegged as the person who did all of the killing.”
“All the killing? Two of Larry Salomon’s associates were already dead when I entered the house. If I hadn’t done what I had, Larry would have been killed as well.”
Sevan put up his hands and with a wry smile said, “Don’t shoot. I’m just the messenger.”
Ralston wondered if he was being played with and decided to get to the point. “Alisa tells me you can help.”
“Interesting. All I told her was that you shouldn’t have asked her for that kind of favor. I explained that if you wanted something like that, you’d have to come to me.”
Sevan was playing with him. “Well, here I am, Marty. You didn’t need me to come all the way up here, especially with the police and God knows who else looking for me. You could have told Alisa to tell me to go to hell. But you didn’t. You wanted me to come see you. Therefore, I can only assume you wanted to tell me to go to hell in person, or you want to help me. Which one is it? Are you going to help me?”
“Let me ask you a question instead,” replied the attorney. “What would you have done if you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those two scumbag drug dealers were the ones in the alley that night. What if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had been the ones who had killed Ava. Would you have testified then?”
“No.”
Sevan arched his eyebrows. “No? Why not?”
“If I could have positively identified the people in that alley, they never would have made it to trial. I would have killed them both myself,” said Ralston.
The attorney smiled at the man in the dark suit, Lavrov, as if to say, Be careful with me, I know dangerous people. He then turned his focus back to Ralston. “You still sound very passionate. Almost genuine.”
“Fuck you, Marty. I didn’t come here to take your crap. If you want to hold me responsible for what happened to Ava, if you want to blame me-after all you know I tried to do for her-then at least have the guts to say so. But don’t you dare impugn my integrity and question how I felt about her and still feel about the people who did that to her. Don’t you fucking do that.”
Sevan sat quietly, as did Lavrov, who was being made very uncomfortable by what he was hearing. Finally, Sevan said, “What if I told you, you were right?”
“Right about what?”
“Right about the men in the alley that night. What if I told you that I had tracked down the men responsible for murdering Ava?”
“I’d say you’re lying.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because,” replied Ralston, “if you’d found them, you’d have already turned them in to the police.”
Sevan opened the drawer in front of him and removed an envelope. Slowly, he slid it halfway across the desk.
“What’s this?”
“The names and addresses of the two men who murdered Ava.”
Ralston looked at him. “And you’ve just been sitting on this information?”
“Let’s say I’ve been trying to decide what the right thing is to do with it.”
Was Sevan nuts? Talking about taking out Ava’s killers in front of Lavrov?
The attorney seemed to be reading his mind. “Mr. Lavrov is trustworthy. Don’t worry about him.”
“You don’t want this on your conscience, Marty. Give whatever you have to the police.”
“Even if it means Ava’s killers only get life in prison, or worse, walk free?”
“Marty, you’re an attorney, for God’s sake. You’d throw that all out the window for revenge? All of this?” Ralston asked, looking around the luxuriously appointed office. “Your
family already lost Ava; they couldn’t stand to lose you, too. Don’t be a fucking idiot, Marty. Whoever’s names are in that envelope, give them to the cops. You may hate my guts, but one day you’ll thank me. Sometimes, revenge is a dish that’s better never served.”
Sevan looked at Lavrov. “I told you, didn’t I?”
“Told him what?” said Ralston.
Sevan shoved the envelope the rest of the way across the desk so that it came to rest in front of Ralston. “Open it.”
Ralston was tempted, but at the same time he knew that if he read what was inside that envelope and those people ended up dead, he’d be one of the prime suspects. Having Lavrov witness the entire thing just gave him a bad feeling. “Not interested.”
Sevan’s eyebrows arched again. “I think you should open it.”
Ralston leaned back in his chair. His body language was answer enough.
The attorney looked at Lavrov and said, “You open it.”
Lavrov glanced at Ralston and then leaned forward and timidly retrieved the envelope.
The man’s fat fingers approached the flap of the envelope as if he were handling the repository of some historic document.
“Hurry up, already,” Sevan prodded.
Lavrov did as he was told. He removed a single, folded sheet of paper. Setting the envelope on the desk, he unfolded the page and turned it around so Ralston could see.
CHAPTER 39
Any question that Martin Sevan had called him to the house to do anything but mess with him was immediately put to rest. The piece of paper Lavrov held up was completely blank.
“Fuck you, Marty,” Ralston said as he grabbed his backpack and stood up.
He was halfway to the door before he heard Sevan say, “Get back in here. You passed.”
“I what?” he said, turning angrily to face the attorney.
“You heard me. I said, passed. Now get back over here and sit down.”
“Up yours, Marty.”
Sevan nodded. “Yeah, you’re pissed off. I get it. Now stop acting like a little girl and sit down. We’ve got a lot to go over.”
“Is this some big game to you, Marty?”
The attorney’s face was as serious as Ralston could ever remember having seen it. “This is not a game. This is my career. Hell, this is my life and my family’s lives. You think I’m just going to hand over the kind of information you asked for without knowing if I can trust you?”
“What does trusting me have to do with anything?”
“Luke, do I look like I’m stupid? Larry Salomon is your meal ticket in this town. Nobody likes when somebody messes with their rice bowl. Understand?”
Ralston was following him, but didn’t know exactly where he was trying to go with it.
Sevan shook his head. “This town robs people of their souls. I needed to know that you hadn’t sold yours. I needed to know that you were still the kind of guy who would do the right thing.”
Now Ralston really was confused. “Wait a second,” he said. “That’s what I did at the trial and you hate my guts for it.”
“Hate’s a very strong word.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Marty. Your entire family wrote me off after I refused to testify against those two guys.”
“It was a tough time for our family.”
Ralston looked right into the man’s eyes. “Yeah? Well, at least you all had each other. I had nobody. I loved Ava and still miss her to the point that it hurts. Worse than that, I have to live with always wondering what would have happened if I had only gotten to her faster. Or what would have happened if I had told the producer I was working with at the time that he could fire me, but I had to take Ava away for her own good?”
“What do you want me to say?” asked Sevan.
“Frankly, Marty, I don’t give a damn. I loved Ava. I know you did, too, but your family circled the wagons and I was left out in the cold. I get it. I was just Ava’s boyfriend. You didn’t owe me anything and I didn’t expect anything.”
The attorney looked at him. “We could have handled things better. I’m sorry that we didn’t.”
An apology? That had been the last thing Ralston had been expecting. He didn’t know how to respond, and Sevan seemed to sense that.
“It wasn’t right. We wanted, no strike that, we needed someone to blame for Ava’s death, and when those two animals walked free from that courtroom, we focused our anger on you. I think all of us in time realized that was the wrong thing to do, but you were essentially out of our lives and our pride kept us from seeking you out.”
“L.A.’s a pretty small town, Marty.”
“We just wanted to put all of it behind us. It was easier to just let it go. Picking at a scab doesn’t help it heal.”
Ralston shook his head. “Scab. Nice analogy.”
Sevan tilted his head to the side and raised his palms. “The fact is that I have a chance to try to make things right and that’s why I’ve asked you here.” Gesturing to Lavrov, he added, “That’s why I’ve asked both of you here.”
Ralston retook his seat and turned his attention to the overweight man in the dark suit. He didn’t say a word. He simply set his backpack down at his feet, kept one eye on the window, and waited for the man to speak.
Lavrov looked at Sevan. When the attorney nodded, Lavrov turned his eyes back to Ralston and said clearly and evenly, “I think I know who sent the Spetsnaz soldiers to kill your friend.”
CHAPTER 40
Ralston didn’t know Aleksey Lavrov from a hole in the ground. Informants could be notoriously unreliable, especially somebody else’s. They liked settling scores by turning parties against each other. That Marty Sevan vouched for the guy didn’t mean Lavrov was without an alternative agenda. Until he was sure, Ralston knew enough to play his cards close to his vest.
Ever the exceptional reader of people, Sevan noted Ralston’s reticence and said, “Before we proceed, it would probably be helpful if Aleksey gave you a bit of background on himself.”
“Yes, that would be helpful,” Ralston replied.
The attorney gestured to Lavrov, as if he were coaching him for trial, and nodded for him to speak.
The husky man reached for his cocktail and took a long sip before setting it back on the coaster. After drying his mouth with the back of his meaty hand, he cleared his throat and said, “I work with the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. I am a naturalized American citizen, but Russian by birth. I work in the office’s Russian organized crime task force.”
Ralston’s eyes flicked to Sevan. What was he getting him into?
“Don’t worry,” the attorney said. “Aleksey is an informant for the task force. He’s not an agent.”
“I am one of the FBI’s sources within the Russian community,” Lavrov clarified.
“And what’s your connection to Mr. Lavrov?” asked Ralston.
“I’m his attorney,” said Sevan. “I actually arranged his relationship with the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, in exchange for dropping certain charges that had been brought against Aleksey.”
“And he owed you a favor.”
“Aleksey is a very smart man who realizes that it pays to have a good lawyer. Right, Aleksey?”
The heavyset man nodded.
Ralston looked at the Russian warily. “So what do you have for me, Aleksey?”
“Mr. Sevan explained to me that you think the men who tried to kill your friend, Mr. Salomon, were Russian. More specifically, Russian Spetsnaz. Correct?”
“Correct.”
Lavrov rubbed his chin. “Please. I am not being disrespectful, but many American people watch movies and think every Russian is Spetsnaz.”
Ralston looked at him. “Mr. Sevan did not explain to you who I am, did he?”
“He told me you work in movies. That you make sure people understand how to shoot guns and drive cars. I assume then that you are a stuntman. Correct?”
“You’re partially correct,” Ralston replied, glad Sevan had not told t
he man everything about his past. “I am a technical consultant on films. Before that, I was in the U.S. military. I have worked with Russian Spetsnaz before.”
“Then you must have been someone very important in the military. Russian Spetsnaz are not easy to kill. They are very difficult to kill. Even regular Russians are not easy to kill, but you killed four Spetsnaz?”
Ralston didn’t want to get into details with Lavrov. “You will have to take my word for it, Aleksey.”
“You are sure that these men were not Russian mafia, maybe?”
“One of the men had a tattoo right here,” he said, pointing under his arm. “It was his blood type, in Cyrillic.”
“This is Spetsnaz,” Lavrov relented. “You are correct.”
“So who in Los Angeles would have been able to coordinate a Spetsnaz hit team?”
The Russian thought about the question for a moment. “You would be looking at someone with experience within the Russian intelligence services. The FSB, or what used to be called KGB. Same people, same mentality, same game plan. Only the name is different. I can think of three men.”
Three? Ralston thought. He was going to have his work cut out for him. “I’ll need names, addresses, and what kind of security they may have.”
Lavrov held up his hand. “One of the men has been in Russia visiting family since the beginning of the summer. Another man is very old and lives in a nursing home. I don’t think these are the men you want.”
“Why not?”
“Besides one being out of the country and the other needing a nurse to feed him?”
Ralston knew that the Italian Mafia often ran operations longdistance and that some of their most senior members were also their most dangerous. The line about old age and treachery popped into his mind. “Yes,” he said. “Besides age and proximity, why should I discount those two?”
“The first man, the one who is on vacation in Russia, he was KGB Ninth Directorate. He operated the Moscow VIP subway. The man in the nursing home was in the Fifth Directorate. He dealt with censorship of writers and filmmakers. I still find it ironic that he ended up retiring in Hollywood.”
